With the holiday season quickly approaching, making sure your infusion center workflow is running efficiently and effectively is necessary. Scheduling slip-ups, inventory confusion and rising coronavirus cases only add to the already stressful infusion center workflow. Below are some best practices for making sure your team is ready to go this holiday season.
Set up patient-appointment reminders
Patient “no-shows” are an unfortunate, but common, issue many infusion centers and medical practices experience. Minimize missed appointments and maximize your infusion center’s schedule by setting up automated patient-appointment reminders. According to Updox, a patient engagement platform, automated appointment reminders are proven to decrease no-shows by 30%. Many patient engagement platforms will allow you to set up automated email, text, and call reminders to your patients at a set cadence with a custom message.
Thanks to our partnership with Updox, WeInfuse clients are able to set up appointment reminders custom to their infusion center.
Track and trace your biologics using vial scanning technology
Having been infusion center operators ourselves, we understand how stressful inventory management can be. Without an automated system, it can be time-consuming and financially risky.
In addition to common mistakes, the 2017 Drug Supply Chain Security Act requires medications to be “tracked and traced” from manufacturer through patient delivery by 2023. While physician practices are currently exempted from the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), “tracking and tracing” your vials could be required by private payers, and the government could, through the stroke of the pen, require physicians practices to comply with the DSCSA. Stay ahead of this change by implementing vial scanning technology into your inventory management plan.
Optimize your cloud-based operations
With the explosion of COVID-19 cases earlier this year, many infusion centers and practices struggled to operate remotely as much of their billing, scheduling, and other responsibilities were done on paper or with on-premises systems. Practices that had cloud-based software or systems in place were able to continue providing care to patients as infusion centers minimized in-office staff. Coronavirus aside, with staff traveling and holidays changing hours of operation, utilizing your EMR’s cloud-based features lends you and your team the flexibility to continue providing great patient care.
Forecast your upcoming inventory needs
Looping back to inventory management, it’s paramount that your practice is on the ball for ordering biologics. Whether your practice uses specialty pharmacy, buy-and-bill, or a combination of both, forecasting your future inventory needs keeps your team proactive. Granted, there are many situations where your schedule changes, but knowing which patients you’ll be treating and exactly what they need in any given week helps prevent last-minute ordering and coordination with your distributor.
What is your infusion center doing to ensure a smooth holiday season? Send us your thoughts and best practices to marketing@weinfuse.com.
